


Zucchini

by Rosemarycat5



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Baking, But mostly fluff, Double proposal, Fluff, Gen, Platonically, Queerplatonic Relationships, Sammy has anxiety, They love each other so much, set some time a little before episode 100, with some anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29070759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosemarycat5/pseuds/Rosemarycat5
Summary: “Please tell me you do not have a notebook labeled ‘The Gay Agenda’.” Sammy grinned.“I do not. But that would have been awesome.”“It would have been.”“ANYway. I did a whole bunch of research on different subjects and LGBTQ+ identities and stuff.”“You know you don’t have to do that, Ben.”“I know, but it’s a good thing to do. But yes, so I was looking into all that stuff, and I found this one term that I thought might be good to describe us.”Or, Sammy has something he wanted to ask Ben, and Ben has something he wanted to ask Sammy.
Relationships: Ben Arnold & Sammy Stevens
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Zucchini

“Um hey, Ben?” 

Sammy and Ben had wrapped up the show and were getting ready to head out when Sammy spoke up. 

“Yeah? Is everything ok, dude?” Ben’s voice and expression shone with concern.

Sammy looked away. Maybe he shouldn’t bring this up now. He’d been thinking about it for a while, what was a little while longer? The show had been nice. They hadn’t gotten overly sappy at any point. It was just them joking around like before. But it was better because there wasn’t anything hanging overhead. No walls, just… totally comfortable. 

Ben interrupted his train of thought. “Sammy? You ok? What’s up?” He sounded even more worried now. Dammit. This isn’t what he wanted. The last thing he wanted was to make Ben worry. 

Sammy put on a smile. “Nothing important. Come on, we don’t want to make Lily late for her show. She nearly killed us last time.”

Ben looked like he was prepared to dispute that, but before he could, Sammy let his face soften into a more genuine expression and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go to Rose’s. We can talk about it when we get home.”

It always made him happy to refer to their apartment as home. 

At Rose’s it was nice. It was so nice. Just talking and joking. At one point Dwayne Libbydale came in to get some coffee, prompting Sammy made several loud comments about The Dark. His reactions were excellent. Ben’s too. Sure, he was stressed about what he was planning to ask Ben about, but he was also very much at ease. They both were. Stealing each other’s pancake puppies, squishing into one side of the booth practically on top of each other to watch some video on Ben’s phone, just taking up space and sharing it. They left Rose’s and drove home listening to Lily’s show (and even calling in briefly though that went about as well as could be expected).

When they got home, Sammy made as if to go to his room. He didn’t want to ruin that with the Serious Talk™ that they always seemed to fall into. Not that it was anything bad, but… maybe it could wait another night. Yeah, it could wait until tomorrow. That would be best. 

“Sammy.”

He turned around a tad guiltily. “Yeah, Ben?”

“Look. Sammy. I know that you wanted to talk about something before, but I also wanted to talk to you about something.” Ben was being all fidgety, shifting his weight from side to side and wringing his hands a bit while he spoke.

Sammy’s brows knit together. “Sure, Ben. What’s up?”

“Well, OK. So uh, remember a few weeks ago when you explained to me what nonbinary meant and stuff?”

“Yes, I do recall.”

“Yeah! So, I thought that was really cool, and I really like making people feel seen and included and stuff.”

“Because you are a wonderful human being.”

“Right. Sure. I try to be. ANYWAY. It made me realize that I didn’t actually know a lot about any of that stuff, so I decided to do some research.”

“Please tell me you do not have a notebook labeled ‘The Gay Agenda’.” Sammy grinned.

“I do not. But that would have been awesome.”

“It would have been.”

“ANYway. I did a whole bunch of research on different subjects and LGBTQ+ identities and stuff.”

“You know you don’t have to do that, Ben.”

“I know, but it’s a good thing to do. But yes, so I was looking into all that stuff, and I found this one term that I thought might be good to describe us.” Ben nervously glanced at Sammy. “But only if you’re ok with it obviously.”

Sammy nodded, and Ben continued. “It is called a queerplatonic relationship, right? It’s like friendship premium plus plus. And you are already my best friend, my partner, and I was thinking we could maybe be queerplatonic partners.” 

There was a moment of silence, which Ben immediately tried to fill with apologies. “Oh, oh no. That’s, that’s dumb or weird. We don’t have to-- Just forget about--”

That’s when Sammy shut him up with a bone-crushing hug. Ben remained all wired for a second before melting into the hug. A minute or two of comfortable silence and comfortable bodies, Sammy started laughing. 

Ben joined in awkwardly after a second. “Dude, what’s so funny”

“It’s just--” He let out another little laugh. “It’s just that that’s what  _ I _ was going to ask you about. And I was terrified that you’d think it was weird.”

Ben looked flabbergasted. “What?! Really?! Dude, that is so cool. We just had a double proposal!” 

“We really did, didn’t we?” Sammy smiled at Ben, who looked so excited like he might combust on the spot. “But you beat me to it, rendering my wonderful speech unused.”

Ben’s eyes glittered. “Ok I NEED to hear the speech now.”

“Well, Ben Arnold. You have been a fixture in my life from practically the moment I met you. In the really… in the really bad times, you were always the brightest spot in my day. You are a shining light, Ben. And god knows we’ve had enough issues with shadows. You have completely changed my life. I thought… I thought that home could only be one person, and that that person was gone, but as it turns out, home can be more than one person. King Falls hasn’t really been a home to me, but your apartment? That’s been a home.  _ You _ are my home too now, Ben. You are my partner and my best friend, and I wanted to know if you would be interested in making that official in some way by being in a queerplatonic relationship with me?”

And then it was Ben’s turn to give a bone-crushing hug. For a short guy, he was very strong, especially when it came to hugs. “I love you, dude. YOU are my home too.” 

“I love you too, Ben.”

They spent a little bit like that, enjoying each other’s space

It was Ben who broke the silence. “So what now? I feel like we should celebrate in some way.”

“Hmm yeah. Any ideas?”

“Well… I did have one idea.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“Ok, so in my research--”

“Your extensive research.”

“IN MY RESEARCH, I saw that queerplatonic partners are sometimes called zucchinis. So I was thinking of baking chocolate zucchini cake for us to eat when you hopefully said yes.”

“But then you remembered that you can’t bake?”

“But then I remembered that I can’t bake. I did save the recipe, so… “

Sammy smiled. “So you were thinking we could bake it together?” Ben nodded enthusiastically. “And I’d do most of the work to prevent disaster?” 

Ben let out some kind of sound that was not human in nature but then conceded. “Ok, yes, that’s fair. So what do you think?”

“I’d say yes as long as we have the ingredients.” 

Ben had already bought all the ingredients. It was an easy enough recipe to follow, but Ben didn’t have a food processor, which meant they were left spending a long time grating zucchini by hand. There were many complaints.

“This is the kind of menial labor they make you do in HELL,” Ben said while aggressively shredding a zucchini on a cheese grater. 

“Well, if you didn’t want to be in this situation, you should have bought a food processor, or at least a nice box grater. Did you even read the recipe before buying the ingredients?”

“Yes! I figured I could just use the blender.”

“It is  _ clearly _ a good thing that you waited for me then. You would be lost without me, Ben Arnold.”

“Yes, I would.” Then he gave Sammy the softest expression and any further sarcasm died on his lips. 

As it turns out, chocolate zucchini cake was delicious. And made better by good company. The best company Sammy ever could have asked for.

**Author's Note:**

> So if you are wondering what I worked on instead of the time sensitive work I needed to be doing, here it is!
> 
> I really wanted to write a fic where their relationship becomes explicitly a queerplatonic one. And I framed it like a double proposal. Which was not planned. It was originally just gonna be Sammy bringing it up, but then I realized that Ben would be so perfect for it too, so this happened.
> 
> I learned that Sammy uses italics for emphasis while Ben uses capitalization. This is, somehow, more accurate to the characters. 
> 
> Chocolate zucchini cake is delicious. Now I really want some. 
> 
> I did not come up with the description of a QPR as friendship premium. I first saw that description in "Ludus" by bluejayblueskies here on Ao3, and it became how I describe QPRs to people and in my head. Go read that fic for some fun aspec Magnus Archives fun with Gerry and Jon in a QPR. 
> 
> Comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
